Part 3: The Freud-Masson Seduction Theory Controversy

Written August 16th, 2009



Every time I start this essay -- looking for more and more interpretive and evaluative clarity, first in myself, and second in the way I convey my thinking to you -- I start in essentially the same place and end up up traveling to, and finishing up, somewhere completely, or at least partly different.

I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I think it is a good thing.

It brings us to this essential point:

Every thing is subject to change -- including human thinking, both 'inside and/or outside the box' which is our own particular representation and construction of the millions of different stimuli that life throws at us, both inside and outside our minds and bodies.

I keep going over this whole 'Freud and Classical Psychoanalysis vs. Masson and the 'Psychoanalytic Deconstructionists' relative to this now 113 year old Seduction Theory Controversy' which Masson re-opened very forcefully and dramatically in the early 1980s.

I pound my head with this issue, going back over the clinical facts and the editorial conclusions from both sides, trying to establish for myself where 'right' and 'wrong' is, 'good' and 'bad', 'guilty' and 'innocent'.

One time Freud is wrong but innocent of all moral-ethical charges against him. Another time -- he is not. There is still the 'Emma Ekstein scandal' and what would seem to be Freud's almost 20 year involvement with 'cocaine' (1894-1904) in which Freud was passing out cocaine like it was aspirin to his friends, probably his wife, his patients, probably Fliess and/or visa versa, a patient died to some combination of morphine and cocaine addiction under Freud's watch...even though no one knew at the beginning what the properties of cocaine were, how dangerous it was, how addictive it was, and other doctors were experimenting with it in similar ways, still Freud was involved in some highly risky and dangerous forms of 'medical and surgical treatment' that seemed to fly in the face of (without too much concern on Freud's part) the medical establishment's Hippocratic Oath: 'First, Do the patient no harm!'

But then again, there have always been risky and dangerous forms of 'therapy' in the evolution of medical treatment, and even today, one can quite legitimately ask the question: 'How closely do radiologists and chemo-therapists adhere to The Hippocratic Oath?'

Still, Freud's involvement with cocaine between approximately 1894 and 1904 is a bigger taboo topic than even his abandonment of The Seduction Theory between 1896 and 1899, and someone has to legitimately ask the question -- no different than an athlete who is known to be, or have been, on steroids -- 'To what extent did Freud's cocaine involvement during this time period (1894-1904) affect his theoretical as well as therapeutic work?'

And more specifically, did it have any affect on Freud's abandonment of The Seduction Theory and his evolution into 'Fantasy Theory'?

Doesn't it seem rather strange that no orthodox Psychoanalyst in approximately 110 years has ever professionally touched this question, let alone attempted to answer it, not even to my knowledge, Dr. Masson?

And then there is -- the 'bull in the china shop' -- Dr. Masson. Did Dr. Masson commit any epistemological and/or ethical errors or omissions in this 'Watergate' of a Psychoanalytic controversy/scandal? Such as accusing Freud of 'losing moral courage' when none of us 80 to 100 years later can profess to know for sure what Freud's mindset was back between 1896 and 1900. Did Masson overstep his own ethical boundaries in this respect -- and kill his own career in Psychoanalysis in the process?

And then there is the question of whether Freud's 'Seduction Theory' -- meaning his 'Childhood Sexual Assault Theory' -- was ever fully justified by the clinical evidence in the first place? I have made this point this point before. Freud had a propensity for jumping to fast, provocative generalizations and theoretical conclusions (The Seduction Theory, The Oedipal Theory, The Childhood Sexuality and Sexual Fantasy Theory, The Death Instinct Theory...) that had a tendency of overstepping the boundaries of 'good epistemology' -- 'good rational-empiricism'. It almost seemed like Freud had a propensity throughout his life -- almost as if it was a 'transference repetition compulsion and/or serial behavior pattern' -- to 'shock people first', and then to 'justify' his provocative, controversial, shocking 'scientific conclusions' with 'rhetorical arguments' that were well put together and seemingly tightly argued -- almost like a prosecution or defense lawyer putting together a 'good case' -- even though, when you really delve into the case and get to the bottom of it, you find that the case, is at best, based on very 'flimsy' and 'far-stretched' clinical evidence that could just as well or better support 5 or 10 other completely different clinical theories.

Again and again, I need to impress upon you as a reader, that life offers each and every one of us a myriad of ever changing, connected and unconnected, stimuli that can be interpreted and evaluated in a multitude of different ways depending on our own personal background, our own experiences, our own narcissistic biases and interests...so to create a theory -- any theory -- is to start to 'think inside a box', 'a theoretical box of our own making' which in effect, 'leads the witness', leads the reader, in a particular direction, towards the conclusion and the theory of our own making -- which may be only one of many other possible conclusions and theories that another person could draw from the same 'myriad of connected and/or not connected stimuli'.

Furthermore, as soon as we start to abstract, as soon as a theorist, we start to 'pick and choose' what evidence we will include and what evidence we will leave out we are once again, leading the witness, leading the reader, on a trip to either 'epistemological and/or ethical clarification' and/or on a trip to 'Never, Never Land' -- a 'boxed theory of our own making', good and/or bad, which for better or for worse, is a 'sound bite' or a 'visual bite' that leaves part of life out and this part of life that is left out may be either non-important or it could be critically important and neglected, suppressed, marginalized.

This problem of 'thinking inside a narcissistically biased theoretical box' is just as relevant to Masson 're-supporting and re-trumpeting the Seduction Theory' as it does for Freud abandoning the Seduction Theory and moving onto 'The Oedipal Theory' and 'Childhood/Adult Fantasy or Phantasy Theory'.

That is why I like, for the most part, to take a combined 'Spinozian-Hegelian' approach and go with the assumption that there is usually a 'combination of truth, distortion, and fantasy in any and every theory' -- not just The Seduction Theory, and not just the Oedipal Theory -- but both as they 'dialectically engage' with each other.

And then there is the issue of 'political correctness' -- what is 'politically correct and politically incorrect' at any given time in history, in this culture or that one, in this society or that one, in this institution or that one. What is deemed to 'fall within the dominant theoretical box at any given time'? And what is deemed to 'fall outside of this dominant theoretical box' -- with the very likely possibility/probability of being suppressed, marginalized, steamrolled over? Again this applies to both Freud and Orthodox Psychoanalysis on the one hand, and any and all forms of 'Anti-Orthodox-Psychoanalysis' on the other hand.

As Western thinkers, we are trained over and over again to think according to a combination of 'Aristolean and Kierkgaardian logic': 'either/or', 'good or bad', 'Right or Wrong', 'Us or Them'...and marginalized in the background is a more 'Spinozian-post-Hegelian' approach to logic that aims to think more wholistically as opposed to reductionistically, dialectically and multi-dialectically as opposed to 'mono-theoretically'...

Again and again, we hear the expression 'think outside the box' (I just heard it on the television show, 'Criminal Minds' the other day) but how many of us can actually do this? How many of us can actually think outside of the dominant theory that rules the day -- or alternatively, how many of us can actually even escape our own more 'unorthodox theory' if we are going against the 'grain of the wood', going against 'Corporate or Institutional or Bureaucratic Policy'...

I know something -- indeed a lot -- about going against Corporate Policy. I just resigned from a $60,000 dispatcher's job because I violated 'Corporate Policy', was suspended...and then resigned...That has consequences -- very real, economic consequences that are usually best fully thought out before we 'brazenly shoot our mouth off'...and perhaps regret it afterwords. Talk about -Aristolean-Kierkaardian logic -- here is an example of Aristolean-Kierkgaardian logic that we all must face each and every day:

To rebel or not to rebel, that is the question. (With a little help from Shakespeare.) Some people can compromise and make their point a little more diplomatically than others. Usually I can 'white wash' or 'sugar coat' what I want to say. But sometimes -- given a particular context -- I don't. And then I have to live with the potential and/or actual consequences of being a little too dramatic in my actions. How many of us have not been here at one point in our lives or another -- some more often than others?

I have a life history of advancing and/or trumpeting 'Unorthodox Theories' -- of my own making, and/or of someone else's making -- indeed, to be sure, there is a 'Transference Complex' here, a 'transference repetition compulsion' based upon my various compensations and identifications with my father's 'authoritarian' personality.


It is amazing that Melanie Klein managed to stay within the Psychoanalytic Establishment with all her 'radically un-Classical Psychoanalytic ideas'. But she kept insisting that she was 'staying loyal and true to Freud'. By the time the rest of the 'Object Relationist' theorists came along (Fairbairn, Hartmann, Jacobson, Winnicott, Guntrip...) and The 'Self-Psychologists' (Kohut), Object Relations had become an accepted 'deviation' from Classical Psychoanalysis when they are probably just as different from what Freud wrote to anything Adler, Jung, Perls, or Masson wrote... They all -- in the broadest sense of the word, and their many conflicting paradigms, be called 'Psychoanalysts'...

It is out of the DGB post-Hegelian Evolutionary Multi-Dialectic of: 1. 'multi-thesis'; 2. 'multi-anti-thesis'; and 3. 'multi-synthesis' -- that Psychoanalysis breathes its strongest fire of life -- becomes life in that it more accurately reflects and represents life from all dialectic sides pulsating towards a central 'essence'. Call that essence what you want -- relative to Psychoanalysis, I like to call it 'transference or even 'the progressing and regressing dialectic force of life itself' of which 'transference' plays a central role in this many act play, this existential drama -- both personal and collective -- this conflict between 'staying the same and/or regressing or self-sabotaging in the throes of the repetition compulsion, the throes of the paralyzing and petrifying transference' vs. 'moving forward towards rebirth, re-creation, regeneration, growth, modification, transformation, the myth of the Phoenix...' The Thanatos Transference vs. the Phoenix Transference. 'Eros Transference' may not be a good way to describe the 'Transference of the Phoenix' because unfortunately, often Eros aligns himself with Thanatos -- in a whirlwind of self-sabotage and self-destruction. This is so in a 'Seduction-Abandonment' Neurosis -- 'Eros' providing the energy for the 'seduction' and 'Thanatos' lurking in The Shadows, The Underground, providing the 'rejecting-death energy' of the 'abandonment'.

But we are getting way ahead of ourselves. Let us follow this hugely captivating 'Dialectic-Psychoanalytic-Existential' drama a little more slowly.

I am reminded of a passage I just read from 'In and Out of the Garbage Pail (1969) by Perls and his favorite quote by Einstein who he met once:

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

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Let's get down to business.

There are some serious ethical charges that are flirting around the edges of The Seduction Theory Controversy such as 1. Freud's cocaine usage -- and giving cocaine to his friends, his wife, and his patients -- as well as to himself when cocaine was brand new to doctors and no one yet clearly knew or understood its essential strongly addictive and life-threatening properties; and 2. the Emma Ekstein debacle where Freud and Fliess together orchestrated a brutally bad, completely unwarranted, and life-threatening nasal surgery on one of his patient's, Emma Ekstein, who almost died from the surgery when Fliess left a long string of medical gauze up her nasal passage and it became infected and painful, leading Freud to find another doctor/surgeon who looked at Emma, found the gauze stuck up and buried in her nose, and removed it, causing blood to come gushing out of her nose til she almost didn't have a pulse. Freud was sick to his stomach and left the room.

However, neither of these incidents -- nor Freud's fear of 'being professionally blackballed and economically shut out' for expounding a new theory of hysteria that stated that 'child sexual abuse was the main precipitating cause of hysteria' (what became known as 'The Seduction Theory' (read by Freud at The Society for Psychiatry and Neurology, Vienna, April 21st, 1896) -- none of these factors in my opinion were he main reason for Freud switching theories 180 degrees from 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' to 'Oedipal-Childhood and Adulthood Sexual Fantasy Theory'.

Instead, let me postulate another theory. Call this the 'transference-projection and sublimation theory'.

My experience with theorists -- myself included -- is that they tend to 'project' and/or 'sublimate' their own personal, private transference issues and complexes onto and into their work. Often, no other theory of 'theory-making' is needed except that theorists then often tend to 'project their own transference material' into their clinical-psycho-therapeutic relationships which in turn can either help or greatly hinder, bias, and pathologize the therapeutic process of working with their clients. For a psychoanalyst this information and this 'phenomenon' is nothing new -- they have known this information for a long while and even given it a name: they call it 'counter-transference'.

Thus, my theory here is that Freud's psychoanalytic counter-transferences -- or worded otherwise, his own personal transference complexes -- were largely responsible for his changeover in Psychoanalytic theory, post-1896, from traumacy-seduction theory to Oedipal-Childhood and Adult Sexual Fantasy Theory.

However, in order to present this theory, I need to step outside of Classical Psychoanalytic Theory in order to expound my own 'Integrative-Post-Hegelian- GAP-DGB' Theory as in -- the key acronym here 'GAP' standing for: 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic'.

You see, at least one other very strange and mysterious thing happened between 1895 and 1896 that neither any Classical Psychoanalyst, nor any Object Relations Psychoanalyst, nor even Dr. Jeffrey Masson with his return to 'The Seduction Theory' has caught. The only one who has caught anything close to what I am going to discuss here -- and he caught the nail flush with the theoretical hammer -- is Fritz Perls.

Now I am going to say something here that may sound very strange and foreign to most clinicians and psychotherapists.

Freud was essentially a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst.

Similarly, the type of psychotherapy that Joseph Breuer practiced on Anna O (or that Anna O. taught Joseph Breuer) and the type of 'hypnotic psychotherapy' that Charcot practiced on his patients in the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France -- all of these similar and/or different renditions of 'memory psychotherapy' had as much in common -- or more -- with Gestalt Therapy as they did with what would eventually become 'Classical Psychoanalysis' (let us say, post-1899).

There are some other clinicians, psychotherapists, and psychoanalyst who are extremely important here -- among them: Wilhelm Reich and his concept of 'body armor'; Melanie Klein and her concepts of 'good' and 'bad' objects; Ronald Fairbairn and his concepts of 'exciting object' and 'rejecting' object; Alfred Alder and his theory of our 'conscious early recollections' offering us 'metaphors' of 'the essence of our lives' (changed into GAP-DGB theory, this reads our 'obsessive-compulsions', our 'repetition-compulsions', and our 'transference complexes'); and Heinz Kohut and his concept of 'narcissistic transferences'.

Let us see, what else are we missing? Sandor Ferenzci and Anna Freud -- and their shared concept of 'identification with the aggressor' which I also call 'transference reversal' and/or 'topdog transference identification'.

Back to Fritz Perls. Fritz Perls met Sigmund Freud for the one and only time in 1936. It was barely a meeting. Rather, it was a lightning fast rejection. A greeting and parting 'gift' from Freud to Perls. Here is the encounter in Perls' own words from 'In and Out of The Garbage Pail' (1969):

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The Master was there, somewhere in the background. To meet him would have been too presumptuous. I had not yet earned such a privilege.

In 1936, I thought I had. Was I not the mainspring for the creation of one of his institutes and did I not come 4,000 miles to attend his congress. (I am itching to write His congress.)

I made an appointment, was received by an elderly woman (I believe his sister) and waited. Then a door opened about 2 and a half feet wide and there he was, before my eyes. It seemed strange that he would not leave the door frame, but at that time I knew nothing about his phobias.

'I came from South Africa to give a paper and to see you.'

'Well, and when are you going back?', he said.

I don't remember the rest of the (perhaps four-minute long) conversation. I was shocked and disappointed.

One of his sons was delegated to take me to dinner. We had my favorite dish, roast goose.

I had expected a quick 'hurt' reaction, but I was merely numbed. Then slowly, slowly, the stock phrases came; 'I'll show you -- you can't do this to me. This is what I get for my loyalty in my discussions with Kurt Goldstein.'

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We will come back to this little encounter between Freud and Perls. It is extremely important. Indeed, psychoanalytically (from a GAP-DGB perspective), this was a 'topdog-identification-transference-reversal' encounter -- from Freud's side. If this terminology is unclear now, it shouldn't be by the time I finish this paper.

You see, Freud was a 'serial rejector' or more specifically, a 'serial abandoner' -- of men.

This was one of Freud's main 'transference neuroses' or 'transference complexes'. Or 'transference scripts'. A 'transference game' that Freud -- subconsciously or unconsciously -- liked to play. Except it was no 'game' in that it was 'deadly serious'. What made it a 'game' -- and here I bring to the foreground another critically important theorist that, until now, I had forgotten, i.e., Eric Berne -- was the element of 'gotcha' at the end of the transaction. And the fact that this was all a subconscious/unconscious 'repetition compulsion' in Freud's life.

What we have here is an ancient Chinese puzzle or riddle that badly needs to be solved. To use Freud's own metaphor, it is like the 'riddle of the Sphinx'.

Or to use another Freudian metaphor, we need to follow Freud's own transference neurosis to its 'childhood etiology' -- to the 'source of the Nile'.

I know that Freud used the 'source of the Nile' analogy relative to his expounding of 'The Seduction Theory' whereas the 'riddle of the Sphinx' analogy, I believe he used relative to his 'discovery of The Oedipal Complex'. (I will have to check the latter analogy -- although I would guess that both can probably be found in Freud's unabridged letters to Fliess; I know the first one can; it the second one that I will have to search down. (Masson, 1985)

'The Oedipal Complex' -- for those who may not know -- was Freud's theory that a man, as a boy, basically 'sexually fantasizes' about his mother and wants to 'sleep with her' while basically 'destroying his father' and/or taking his place in the process'; and alternatively, a woman as a girl sexually fantasizing about her dad and wanting to sleep with him while 'destroying and/or taking the esteemed place of her mother. (Freud later called this latter phenomenon regarding the woman and her father -- the 'Electra Complex'.

In my own approach, I 'water down' Freud's Oedipal Complex Theory to make it more 'realistically palatable' -- i.e., that the boy as a man is often romantically and/or sexually attracted to a woman who is like his mom; while the girl as a woman is often romantically and/or sexually attracted to a man like her dad. Or the opposite -- in which case we have what might be called 'The Reverse Oedipal or Electra Complex'.

You see, most people -- i.e. most 'academics' and/or 'professionals' believe that Freud's Traumacy-Seduction Theory and his Oedipal-Childhood Sexual Fantasy Theory were mutually exclusive. I don't. In the words of Ronald Fairbairn -- or my modified interpretation of him -- the 'rejecting object' is often the same as 'the exciting object'. Freud couldn't get his head around this aspect of 'the transference phenomenon' nor this aspect of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory because in his mind it violated 'the pleasure principle'. He was only partly right here. He came closest to understanding the 'repetition compulsion' and the phenomenon of 'transference' at the beginning of 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' when he talked about the possible connection between 'the repetition compulsion' and 'the mastery compulsion'. Bingo!

You got it right there, Dr. Freud. There was only one problem. 'The mastery compulsion' sounded an awful lot like 'the superiority complex' or 'superiority striving' -- and that sounded an awful lot like the thinking of one ex-Psychoanalyst whose work you had rejected a number of years before -- i.e., one Alfred Adler.

Which brings us to a bigger part of the problem here. By the time we get to -- let us say -- 1936 and Freud's brief meeting with Fritz Perls, Freud -- and Psychoanalysis as a whole (and as a transference projection of his personality) -- was like a combination of 'Scrooge' from 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Humpty Dumpty' in that all of the best elements of Freud's thinking, and all his various theories, and all the various theories of all his 'ex-colleagues' who he had ultimately rejected of whom Perls may have been the last one (off the top of my head: Adler, Jung, Ferenzci, Rank, Reich, Perls...Let me even include Masson.) -- were scattered all across the map like, well, 'Humpty Dumpty'.

Just think of what a Psychoanalytic 'smorgasbord' we could have if we would could bring all these brilliant theorists and therapists back into the Psychoanalytic fold!!!

We could have a huge post-Hegelian Psychoanalytic and ex-Psychoanalytic feast!!!

Just think of what a Hegelian multi-dialectic game of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis' we could play!!

We could have Traumacy Theorists. Seduction Theorists. Oedipal Theorists. Object Relationists. Adlerians. Jungians. Frommians. Transactional Analysts. Gestaltists.

We could have the richest Psychoanalytic Buffet that any theorist could possibly want to dine at.

All we would have to do is throw out all 'the conceptual narcissism' because that is the one 'professional defense mechanism' that is preventing Humpty Dumpty from being put back together properly again!!

Conceptual narcissism is the reason that Humpty Dumpty is scattered all across the globe.

Let us come back to Fritz Perls -- and Gestalt Therapy.

And to Alfred Adler.

And to the whole mystery of 'transference' which unbeknownst to many clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, and psycho-theorists is also very tied up to the whole 'traumacy-seduction-Oedipal' controversy.

We are still trying to unravel 'riddle of the Sphinx', and find the source of the Nile which is somewhere at the bottom of all these partly different but interconnected problems.

Adler had a few very important 'pieces' of the answer to the transference riddle.

Only conceptual narcissism stepped into the middle of things and greatly confused the issue -- put up a wall of 'smoke and mirrors'.

In Adler's terminology, the idea of a 'transference script and/or complex and/or neurosis' basically became a 'lifestyle script and/or complex and/or neurosis.

And in Adler's terminology and conceptuology, 'repressed, unconscious childhood memories' were out -- and 'conscious early childhood memories' were in.

And in Adler's terminology, 'mastery and repetition compulsion' basically became 'superiority striving'.

But anyway you want to look at it, there are some extremely important connections here that someone needs to properly address and point out their significance.

Conceptual narcissism or no conceptual narcissism.

Gestalt Psychology -- and Perls utilizing many of the 'wholistic' ideas from Gestalt Psychology in Gestalt Therapy (with help and influence from his wife Laura, Kurt Goldstein, Hefferline, and Goodman...) -- provided a much needed 'closure' to the Psychoanalytic problem of 'transference'.

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Kurt Goldstein
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born November 6, 1878
Kattowitz, Province of Silesia
Died September 19, 1965
Nationality German
Fields Neurology
Institutions Institute for Research on the After-Effects of Brain Injury
Columbia University
Tufts University, Brandeis University
Doctoral advisor Carl Wernicke
Known for Holistic Method, Organismic theory
Influenced Frederick Perls, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Paul Tillich, Georges Canguilhem

Kurt Goldstein (November 6, 1878 - September 19, 1965) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who was a pioneer in modern neuropsychology. He created a holistic theory of the organism based on Gestalt theory which deeply influenced the development of Gestalt therapy. His most important book in German Der Aufbau des Organismus (1934) has been published again in English: The Organism (1995) with an introduction by Oliver Sacks.

Goldstein was co-editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology.


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The critically important concept here that Perls introduced to psychology and psychotherapy was not completely foreign to Psychoanalysis. Indeed, as I stated earlier in this essay, it can easily be argued that all of Breuer, Charcot, Freud, even Janet, were closer to being 'Gestalt Therapists' in those early days than they were to being 'Classical Psychoanalysts'.

The critical concept that Perls introduced to the understanding of transference was the Gestalt concept of 'the unfinished situation'.

But before we zero in on Perls, Gestalt Therapy, and the 'unfinished situation', there is another writer who very nicely 'closes the gap' between Freud, transference, the repetition compulsion, Adler -- and what is coming with Perls.

Aldo Carotenuto, author of 'Kant's Dove: The History of Transference in Psychoanalysis' (1986, 1989) saw the theoretical and therapeutic connections:

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It should be clear in what sense we have used the term repetition compulsion without the negative connotations attributed to it by Freud. It is obvious that a repetition compulsion characterized by the more or less unconscious intent to get over, by int of trying again and again, the obstacle which once got the better of us, paralyzing or mortally wounding us, is no longer destructive but, on the contrary, constructive. The difference between the two concepts is radical; they are poles apart. The immediate results can sometimes be the same, for if one persists in measuring oneself against an adversary that has proven itself superior, one risks extreme consequences. However, it is one thing to ask for a return match and quite another to want the humiliation of defeat.

Our concept is comparable to Adler's 'handicap challenge': the inferiority complex induces us to excel in precisely that area where we feel inferior. (Aldo Carotenuto, Kant's Dove, p. 103.)

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In Ronald Fairbairn's language, suddenly the 'rejecting object' becomes the 'exciting object'.

Tucked in between Fairbairn and Carotenuto historically (I was writing in the same subject area and with the same perspective as Carotenuto around the same time period in the early to mid 1980s before I knew he existed and found his book probably in the later 80s or early 90s) -- was Fritz Perls.

Here is what Perls had to say in 1969 pre-dating the work of both Carotenuto and myself by about 15 years. This is a rather long quote from 'In and Out the Garbage Pail' by Perls -- but critically important for our discussion here:

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Perhaps the most interesting and important property of the gestalt is its dynamic -- the need of a strong gestalt to come to closure. Every day we experience this dynamic many times. The best name for the incomplete gestalt is the unfinished situation.

I want to make very clear a fallacy of Freud's, and to compare this fallacy with the academic and my personal gestalt approach, and to cut through some superficial similarities. In this context, I want to show the therapeutic hopelessness of the Freudian (and every) instinct theory.

Freud observed that some of his patients showed a need to repeat a pattern of experience over and over again. Some, for instance, sabotaged themselves at the moment of success. He named such an attitude 'compulsive repetition'. This is certainly a valid observation and an adequate term. Repetitive nightmares and similar gestalten are easily traced in many neuroses. It is doubtful whether we should include in this category the need to go five days a week to the same analyst at the same time to the same place on the same couch, come rain or come sunshine, whether sad or gay, disturbed or calm.

Freud ended up with his theory that life is a conflict between Eros and Thanatos. As each one of us participates in life, he participates, according to this theory, in Thanatos, the death instinct. That means that each one of us suffers from compulsive repetition.

This seems to be a supposition that is rather far stretched.

How does one come from a compulsive repetition to a death instinct? (Howe does the spinach get on the roof? A cow can't fly!) A simple sleight of hand, Gentlemen! You see, here is this repetition -- now this repetition is a habit. A habit deprives you of freedom to choose. It petrifies your life. Voila! Simple, isn't it? Now watch: this death can be life too. If you turn petrifaction outward, it is aggression, which is very much alive. I feel like an s.o.b. but someone has to see the emperor's nakedness.

Where is the fallacy? In the assumption that all habits are petrifactions. Habits are integrated gestalten and, as such, in principle, are economical devices of nature. As Lore once pointed out to me, 'good' habits are life-supportive.

... (skipping a paragraph) Perls continued...

Now it is true that once a habit is formed -- once a gestalt is established -- it is there and becomes a part of the organism. To change a habit involves pulling that habit out of the background again and investing energy (as we saw with H2O) to disintegrate or reorganize the habit.

Freud slipped up by not recognizing the difference between pathological compulsive repetition and organismic habit formation.

The compulsive repetition cannot empty out the foreground and be assimilated. (See Breuer's, Charcot's, Freud's, and Janet's early work on hypnosis, repression, and dissociation...my dgb editorial remarks.) On the contrary, it remains a constant source of attention and stress just because the gestalt has no closure, just because the situation remains unfinished, just because the wound will not heal.

The compulsive repetition is not death-oriented, but life-oriented. It is a repeated attempt to deal with a difficult situation. The repetitions are investments towards the completion of a gestalt in order to free one's energies for growth and development. The unfinished situations are holding up the works; they are blocks in the path of maturation. (Fritz Perls, 1969, p. 65-67.)

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Freud said this himself, much, much earlier than Perls (1969), myself, and Carotenuto (1986), in a quote that is attributed to Freud from I do not know where by Ferenzci in the latter's 1909 paper, 'Introjection and Transference' long before Freud moved in the direction of 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' (1920), -- and 'the death instinct'.

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Freud summarizes these considerations in the saying that we may treat a neurotic any way we like, he always treats himself psychotherapeutically, that is to say, with transferences. What we describe as introjections and other symptoms of the disease are really -- in Freud's opinion, with which I fully agree -- self-taught attempts on the patient's part to cure himself. (Sandor Ferenzci, 1909, Introjection and Transference, found in: Aaron Esman's book, 'Essential Papers on Transference', 1990, p. 25.)

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In 1936, Perls came from South Africa -- where he had been given a position by Ernest Jones as a training analyst in Johannesburg, South Africa, and founded the South Africa Institute for Psychoanalysis. (Fritz Perls, 'In and Out of the Garbage Pail', 1969, p. 41-42.) -- to Czechoslovakia to give a paper at the International Psychoanalytic Congress (p. 44) on 'oral resistances'. (This is where Perls had the quick, deflating meeting with Freud cited above.)

Now I haven't read the 'oral resistances' paper that Perls was talking about but I imagine fairly confidently that it was a foreshadowing of what was later to come with his first book, 'Ego, Hunger, and Aggression' (1947) where Perls made the evolving transition from Orthodox Psychoanalysis to the beginning of Gestalt Therapy.

The idea of 'oral resistances' is a fairly simple one to contemplate although it may have many different types of 'derivatives' -- and even some 'metaphorical derivatives'. Like 'swallowing whole a pathogenic idea' (pathological introjection) as opposed to metaphorically 'carefully testing these ideas with your tongue and teeth and either slow, careful chewing or ocnversely spitting the idea out because you can taste its toxicity and don't want it, don't want to ingest it...'

But let us get back to the more physical level -- and talk briefly about 'eating disorders'.

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Eating disorder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with compulsive overeating. (Discuss)
This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.


An eating disorder is to eat, or avoid eating, in a manner which negatively affects both one's physical and mental health. Eating disorders are all encompassing. They affect every part of the person's life. According to the authors of Surviving an Eating Disorder, "feelings about work, school, relationships, day-to-day activities and one's experience of emotional well being are determined by what has or has not been eaten or by a number on a scale."[1] Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most common eating disorders generally recognized by medical classification schemes,[2] with a significant diagnostic overlap between the two.[3] Together, they affect an estimated 5-7% of females in the United States during their lifetimes[4]and "approximately 10% of eating disordered individuals coming to the attention of mental health professionals are male".[5] There are several other eating disorders which are prevalent amongst certain demographics that are being investigated and defined - Rumination syndrome, Compulsive overeating, and Selective eating disorder.

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Now I don't profess to know much about eating orders but using the polar-dialectic idea of 'oral obsessive-compulsions and addictions' on the one hand, and the opposite polar-dialectic idea of 'oral resistances, oral restraints, and/or oral defenses', I think we can work our way through a number of similar, different, and/or related issues here.

Let us say that 'I want to eat.' But I am concerned about a 'weight problem' and my 'social-self-image'. Thus, we have the potential beginning of a 'self-conflict' -- a 'self-division' if you will between 'id' and 'superego' or between 'topdog' and 'underdog' or between 'Dionysian Ego' and 'Apollonian Ego'.

Now this type of conflict could or can potentially resolve itself in any of a hundred or a thousand possible different ways. Some healthy, some not. One example -- 'binging' and then 'purging' -- is obviously not healthy. Nor is not eating.

As with any conflict between 'impulse' and 'restraint', one side of the conflict might 'dominate' while the other side is 'marginalized'. Or visa versa.

Or the two sides might be literally stuck in some type of 'neurotic clinch', or a 'neurotic impasse'.

This is where Wilhelm Reich made a huge contribution to Psychoanalysis with his work, 'Character Analysis', 1933 (and the related ideas of 'character armor' and 'body armor').

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Wilhelm Reich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born March 24, 1897(1897-03-24)
Dobrzanica, Galicia
Died November 3, 1957
Lewisburg, PA
Residence Rangeley, ME
Citizenship Austrian, American
Fields Psychoanalysis
Alma mater University of Vienna
Known for Freudo-Marxism, body psychotherapy, orgone
Influences Max Stirner, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx
Influenced Saul Bellow, William Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Arthur Janov, Paul Goodman, Alexander Lowen, Norman Mailer, A.S. Neill, Fritz Perls
Signature

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry.[1] He was the author of several notable textbooks, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Character Analysis, both published in 1933.

Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms.[2] He tried to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, arguing that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, open relationships outside marriage, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence. His work influenced a generation of intellectuals, including Saul Bellow, William Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Norman Mailer, and A. S. Neill, and shaped innovations such as Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy.[3]

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Victor Daniels' Website in

The Psychology Department at
Sonoma State University


lecture notes on

Wilhelm Reich


and His Influence

10-05-08

photo of Reich

INTRODUCTORY

FOUNDER OF SOMATIC PSYCHOLOGY.Wrote over 20 books and 450 articles. Brought the body into psychology.

"Body Language" -- the term is now commonplace. It wasn't always that way. With Freud and psychoanalysis everything was the mind. Reich was the first to bring the body into psychoanalysis, and to physically touch the client.



BIOGRAPHICAL: EARLY LIFE.

Born in 1897 in the eastern Austro-Hungarian empire. From a landowning Jewish family in Romania, but assimilated into German culture and forbidden to play with Jewish children. Stressed German culture. Family was welthy, stuck up, with a feudal attitude. His father was very abusive --struck him for minor infractions and gave him harsh beatings. A brutal man with an intensely jealous streak.

His mother, by contrast, was soft, nurturing, beautiful. Loved to stroke his hair and hold him. Not an intellectual. Shortly after Wilhelm's brother Robert was born, due to trauma associated with his childbirth, she had to go away to spas for a health cure and Wilhelm took this as abandonment. Reich rarely mentioned his brother, but theyr were very competitive -- competed constantly for mother's love.

MOTHER'S AFFAIR
A. Between ages 6 and 10, Reich was being tutored at home and not allowed to play with other children. During this time, Reich's mother had an affair with one of the tutors. At age 12, he told his father everything. He had been very angry at her for never intervening when father beat him--this was his way of getting back at her. She tried to commit suicide by drinking lysol. After that his father suspected her of more infidelity, and started to beat her as well as Wilhelm. When Reich was 14 his mother committed suicide. At first Reich showed no remorse --then guilt.

FATHER'S DEATH
Three years after his mother committed suicide, his father died of TB. But before that he had stood in the rain and gotten pneumonia. His illness was considered self-induced.

Reich never in his life was able to complete psychoanalysis himself. He started several times and always stopped. There were traumas in his early life that he was simply unable to come to groups with. He always found excuses to break off analysis.

4. INTEREST IN SEXUALITY
As early as age 3 wanted to ask where babies come from. Wilhelm and his borther Robert were left alone with the servants a lot. Observed an affair between the housemaid and the coachman.

* At 4 1/2 gave it a try with Robert's nurse. As he reports it, he climbed in bed with her while Robert was sleeping, got on top of her, reached for her genitals, she didn't object, and he tried his best. Robert woke up and told his father, who then forbade Wilhelm to sleep with servants. (Previously he had tried it with the maid while she was sleeping, bud she woke up and slapped him and threatened to tell his father.)
*
* At age 11 he had intercourse with the cook. At 15 he occasionally visited a brothel..
*
* He saw the mother symbolized in breasts. Talked about yearning for the mother. His obsession with sex was probably related to his yearning for love. Never kissed womens' breasts --said "That will be only when I find someone I can truly love."
*
* Despite, or perhaps because of this remarkable history, Reich considered any kind of sexual contact with a client to be forbidden- --potentially harmful to the analysis.



LATER EVENTS -- RELATIONSHIP WITH FREUD
After father died, Reich took over the business and continud his studies. At age 18 he left to join the army and never returned to the family farm. After the Army he went to Vienna to medical school. For a time he shared an apartment with his brother in Vienna and was extremely poor. His professor kept inviting thm to dinner so they could eat.

Reich was impatient and brilliant. He studied with Freud and was fascinated with the concept of libido, but thought of it not just as psychic but as real energy. In 1919 was allowed to join the Vienna psychoanalytic society as an undergraduate. Very unusual. Was considered Freud'ds "favorite son." Became vice-director of Freud's polyclinic in Vienna, became director of training at the psychoanalytic institute, in charge of supervising the training program for other analysts, and had an open invitation to visit Freud any time. Also very involved in music.

Married Annie Pink, a psychoanalyst and socialist. At medical school she was considered very desirable, likely to succeed, etc.

In 1927, severe conflict with Freud. Reich had asked Freud to be his personal therapist. Frued refused-- had a policy against being analyst for anyone in his society. According to his wife, Reich saw Freud as a father figure.

Reich basically agreed with Freud up until the 30s. But thought Frued stayed too much in the mind, didn't go into body. Psychoanalytic theory was well developed but therapeutic techniques lagged behind. It could go on for years with no cures, and when cures occurred, people sometimes didn't know why. In regard to his ideas, R. thought Freud just didn't get it.

In 1933, tried to integrate the idea of Marx with psychoanalysis. At ages 2 and 4 sent his 2 girls away to a communist school, much to the chagrin of their mother. Once they were singing "O tannenbaum," and he got angry because he wanted them to sing communist songs.

BERLIN, DENMARK, SWEDEN.

* After Vienna he moved to Berlin. The Berlin psychoanalytic society had a lot of problems with his communist ideas, communists had a hard time with his ideas on sex.
* From there he moved to Denmark. In 1935 he pulled out of all psychoanalytic organizations. He moved from Denmark to Norway, constantly getting ostracized because of his radical beliefs. In Norway he was the target of a vicious campaign by a newspaper.
* 1939-- with world war II approaching, moved to the U.S.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: The name of Reich's approach.

CENTER OF REICH'S WORK: REUNITING THE MIND AND BODY.
This split between mind and body causes us to destroy each other and our planet, Reich believed, and allows us to go to war. So in therapy we pay attention to the body and work on it. He developed a variety of innovative ways of working with held-in somatic energy, such as having people lie on mattresses and kick and pound them to release energy, , in combination with psychotherapy.

THE BODY'S OUTWARD APPEARANCE IS AN ACCURATE REFLECTION OF WHAT'S HAPPENING INSIDE, said Reich. There is a basic mistake in idea, "I think,...I am." You can't change your thoughts at a basic level without change in your body, in what you do.

* Reich wanted a full-body emotional response to life. If you cover yourself up, may deaden pain, but also rob yourself of full joy.
* When someone inhibits an impulse they feel tension. Inhibited libido is tense muscles, sexual charm is relaxed muscles.

FUNCTIONS OF MUSCULAR ARMOR:

* KEEPS POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE EMOTIONS IN
* WARDS OFF EMOTIONS OF OTHERS.
* Reich noticed men have trouble taking away armor because they are so accustomed to suppressing feelings and emotions. \
* An armored person does not feel their armor as such. Reich believed that mind-body work is necessary for people to rid themselves of this armor.
* BODY ARMOR AND CHARACTER ARMOR are essentially the same. Their function is trying to protect yourself against the pain of notexpressing things that society says you may not express. Muscular armor is character armor expressed in body, muscular rigidity.
* Armoring is the sum total of the muscular attitudes which a person develops as a defense against the breakthrough of emotions, especially anxity, rage, sexual excitation. Character armor is the sum total of all the years of the muscular attituded that have also been incorporated in the person's character.

CHARACTER ARMOR CAN BE REFLECTED IN LIFE-PATTERNS. Karen Horney, reflecting on Reich's work, noted that people may arrange their lives to fit their character armor. Thus a severely introverted person may find an apartment in a building that is so configured that he or she need not meet or interact with neighbors, and shop at impersonal stores where minimal contact with others is necessary.

AGGRESSION:
Direct correlation betwen inhibition of aggression and byd armor. Mood-blocked patients-- "stiff as a board" In therapy when he would get person to relax some, an anxiety would take the place of the stiffnes, and for many people, the stiffness was preferable to the anxiety. Holding back like that blocks awareness. Arkoring can lead to cancer, arthritis, rheumatism.
THE LONGER THE ARMOR GOES ON, INSTINCT SUPPRESSED, THE MORE PSYCHOSOMATIC PROBLEMS ITS LIKELY TO LEAD TO



RINGS

Blocks are the contractions in the organsism which prevent the free flow of energy. It appeared to Reich that these appear as rings at a number of points in the body.

1. OCULAR. Forehead, eyes, cheekbones, tear duct glands. Inability to open eyes wide. Treatment: Get people to open their eyes "really wide like they're scared."

2. ORAL. Lips, chin, throat. Person may find it hard to cry, grin, grimace at all.

3. NECK: When armoned, holding back crying, anger.

4. CHEST: Major function--self-control, restraint. Ex: suppressed spite. Holding back anger. Tight muscles holding back raving rage, heartbreaking solbbing, intolerable longing. The armored peerson is unable to express thos things.

With someone armored in chest areas -- hands and arms may move very awkwardly.Example of being free of this armor: musician or dancer who moves in very fluid way. Armor in head and chest-- often found in militarism. Militarism based on armoring and vice-versa. In women, armoring can result in insensitivity in nipples, disgust at nursing.

5. DIAPHRAGM.

6. ABDOMINAL CONTRACTIONS

7. PELVIC REGION. When excitement reaches a place that is blocked, the pleasure that comes from the flowing of the energy turns into rage. Might have muscular spasms. Emphasis on vigorous expression of anger, rage, crying, other emotions. We can function as a whole unit when the armor is removed. Focus on breaking up the inhibitions.

Reich would work with the seven regions of the body to dissolve resistance. The resistance is what we build up throughout our life to block affect. In Reich's day, the newborn infant was immediately bundled up very tightly to restrict movement. Reich takes each developmental stage and shows how society forbids certain kinds of expression of energy. \Example: in early toilet training, people are taught to tighten up, restrict.

In masturbation, "Don't touch that dirty little finger or it will fall off." All along, parental teaching is stopping the natural flow of energy. Inside excitement is building up like a pressure cooker. I'm angry but not allowed to be angry. Can't express things like we want. "I"m mad as hell. I want to touch my little thing and it's not going to fall off." We develop armoring to stop this flow of energy.



SEXUALITY AND ARMORING. As a result of armoring, the sexual impulse is changed from something soft and gentle to something harsh and brutal. Inability to express sexuality causes rage, which must also be repressed, and then sex becomes mechanical and brutal.

* One manifiestation: pelvis pulled back, thing and buttock muscles tight. Therapeutic goal: to dissolve the armoring, both muscular and character.

* People could perform the act but not necessarily feel the pleasure associated with it. Freud never talked about sexual experiences in adult life. Always went back to childhood. At the time it was thought that if man could ejaculate and woman could show any interest or pleasure at all they were doing OK.

ORGIASTIC POTENCY: Ability to surrender to the flow without any inhibition. Complete surrender to the sexual act. "This is always lacking in neurotic individuals." Few people mature with complete orgiastic potency. Full orgasm can only happen in 4 ways, held Reich:

1. If people love each other and can express this love
2. When both people are free of armor, then involuntary muscular movements occur before climax
3. Breathing should be deep, full, pleasurable
4. Shortly before orgasm both sexes should experience deep, delicious current-like sensations running up and down bodies. Armoriing cuts this off. Otherwise, climax in loins only. Not throughout body.

Reich saw ability to lose ourselves in sexual ecstasy as the ultimate measure of well being.

NEUROTIC SEXUALITY: Sexual discharge leaves people empty, unsatisfied, not fully at peace. For Reich, ejaculation alone, or a small climax by the woman, was not enough to be called an orgasm. It required ca complete release of exicitation. Many men boasted of now many times they could do it a night but were limited in the pleasure they got, while women were filled with conflict and guilt.

* Reich saw sexual energy as in two parts. Buildup and release. Charge and discharge.
* He held that NEUROSIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE SUM TOTAL OF ALL CHRONICALLY AUTOMATIC INHIBITIONS OF NATURAL SEXUAL EXCITATION, AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE RESULT OF THIS ORIGINAL DISTURBANCE.
* STASIS: A damming-up of sexual energy in the organism. Stasis = neurosis. Sexual stasis is the difference between the energy built up and the amount released during orgasm. This leftover energy, undischarged, feeds the inhibition which is hindering sexual release and pleasure, and the inhibition in turn adds to the sexual stasis. A vicious circle. That, for Reich, was the energy source of neurosis.
* ESSENTIAL: Ability to give and receive love in all its forms The full orgiastic reflex is a sign that the person is free of body armoring. Reich's goal was to RESTORE THE PRIMACY OF OUR SENSUAL NATURE. To really let go during the sexual experience. Not just an orgasm but a complete, full release.



REICH'S APPROACH TO THERAPY

INTERPRETATION OF RESISTANCE. Psychoanalysts were not doing this. They were very involved with subsconscious--dreams, etc., paying no attention to behavior. Reich noticed resistance right from the start. Wondered why people never fully let go. Why inhibitions not relaxed?? In Reich's approach, we should start with the armoring and defense mechanisms and THEN go inward. So he would start with the resistances the people were putting up.

Freud had known that resistance was a sign of repression, but no effective technique was ever found to move through them, except free association.

Reich was much more interested in patients' resistances than in the information they offered (in contrast to Freud.) In psychoanalysis, clients would offere the same information over and over, going around in circles. Reich focused on breaking up inhibitions. He declared, "the resistance itself becomes the center of the work." When people discover how they resist awareness, then they can choose to keep doing so, or to go deeper into themselves, at their own pace.

He said, don't work with the deeper layers of the unconscious until the defense mechanisms are identified, because the resistance will hold the neurotic behavior in place even if the meanings are understood. He worked first with resistances and would not interpret behavior until the resistances had been laid bare.

In CHARACTER ANALYSIS, resistances could be observed in the patient's behavior --ways of talking, walking, moving. Reich couldn't understand why psychoanalysts refused to pay attention to observable behavior.

We have primarily one character structure. Our character can imprison us in rigid and stereotyped reactions at the same time that we build our character as a defense against our environment. Characterological armoring. The armoring is a compromise between our impulses and our social obligations--between what we want and what we think we should do.

In therapy, instead of digging into the deep meaning of the information people present, he would notice how they breathed, held their shoulders, etc. and work with that.

In the 1930s, took idea of armoring one step farther, to muscular armor. Assumes that we are the sum total of our entire lives. How we breathe, laugh, hold ourselves.

He focused on breaking down the muscular armor. Through breathing and other techniques that mobilized body energies. Lookef for "the orgasm reflex" in breathing. Start breathing way up high and way down into the belly. Then become aware of your head --what does your head do as you inhale and exhale, which way does the pelvis go?

Some people, as inhale, head forward, pelvis back. As exhale, head back, pelvis forward. An important goal of therapy --just to have people breathe in this manner.

Examples: If someone with chin held high, he would interpret this as a resistance. Try and feel sad with your chin up. He might ask them to bring the chin down, and then see how easy it is to feel sad.

If people had a scream to let out, put their head back, then drop the jaw. His first step in therapy --to get patient to breathe easily and deeply.

Second step --mobilize whatever is seen in the patient's behavior. Touched and moved his patients, another break from psychoanalysis.

CHILDREN: He wrote a lot about the self-regulating child. Letting the child determine when it's ready for toilet-training, etc. PREVENTION OF NEUROSIS: The social culture of people would have to be altered.


NEO-REICHIANS

ALEXANDER LOWEN ("Bioenergetics") FROM 1942-54 Reich was treating and teaching Lowen, the founder of bioenergetics, who said that he learned everything that's important to him from Reich.Reich said, Got to get energy down into the pelvis. Lowen: Get it radiating into our extremities, out into hands and feet. Achiever energy --always outward, forward. Trainer had a woman walk backward in a circle to get into her energy.

STANLEY KELEMAN: Maintained a body-oriented psychotherapy practice in San Francisco Wrote the most readable neo-Reichian body oriented psychology books I've seen. Best known is Sexuality, Self, and Survival. Also various others. I highly recommend his writing.

MOSHE FELDENKREIS; THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE. Other neo-Reichian approaches that use gentle movements and manipulations. Eleanor Criswell uses a similar approach.

IDA ROLF: Developed a method of deep tissue massage that can be seen as an even deeper cousin of shiatsu in which she actually went in with her thumb and fingertips and physically separated stuck-together muscles and tendons and ligaments that were held in certain positions as a result of personality and character variables, thus literally freeing up the body to move in ways that it had been unable to before. Not infrequently during Rolfing, deep emotions and images from the past often come flooding out as the tension and held-togetherness of particular areas of the body are released.

ROBERT K. HALL, originally trained as a psychoanalyst, then as a Gestalt therapist with Fritz Perls, combined Rolfing with the knowledge he gained from the bodywork system developed by Dr. Randolph Stone of India, which added work at particular acupressure points, as well as other interventions, to Rolfing per se. Hall called this LOMI BODY WORK. The Lomi School he founded, which is in Santa Rosa, grants Master's degrees.

WILHELM REICH'S SOCIOPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(Notes from a guest lecture by Mary Gomes).

THE "FREUDIAN LEFT" Reich was part of the "Freudian left" which included himself, Marcuse, Fromm, Adorno, Horkeimer, and the various other figures of "critical theory." He was one of the first political psychologists. Undertook a creative synthesis of psychoanalysis and Marxist socialism. . Was kicked of both the psychoanalytic association and the Communist Party as a consequence of publishing The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933). (Mary's comment: He must gotten done something right!)''

WHAT IS OUR BASIC NATURE? Reich asked, can our basic nature be trusted, can we trust people's natural unfolding? Or if we think the child is inherently bad, we will probably insist on strong external controls. Because if you don't trust people, you will look for some way to control them.

REICH'S MODEL: :

* Reich's model of Personality, Drawn as a circle:
* the center (core) is natural sociability, sexuality, spontancous enjoyment of work with no external carrot or stick, and capacity for love. All this often get repressed.
* In a circle around the center, the next layer that arises. This is the Freudian unconscious, in which sadism, greediness, lasciviousness, envy, and perversions of all kinds are found.
* In the outer circle is the layer of control: compulsive, insincere politeness, cocktail party conversation and artificial sociability. Equivalent to Jung's Persona. We can also equate this to "peeling the onion."

REVOLUTIONARY OR REACTIONARY ATTITUDE Reich asked, Does psychoanalysis have a "revolutionary" or a "reactionary" attitude toward our situation? Does it endeavor to help people

* a. Get out of suppressive social situations, or
* b. Strengthen the authorities in them?

Reich's break with Freud was partly around this very issue within the psychoanalytic movement. Freud, although he opposed the Nazis, took the authoritarian position within psychoanalysis. Once he had fully developed his own ideas, Reich viewed Freud asreactionary. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud laid out a theory of innate aggressiveness,. He held essentially that in our deepest core we want to rape and pillage and murder. You can't trust people. Ultimately, we're inherently destructive. Reich read this and found it inherently reactionary. Reich thought that Freud started to look underneath the character of the society he lived in, but did not look far enough.

REICH'S REFLECTIONS ON FREUD:

In Reich's view, Freud sort of peeked underneath the little mask of character and saw perversions. Freud's mistakes:

* He thought he had gone as deep as he could go, when in reality he had only taken the first step.
* He thought he had found universal human tendencies, without fully considering the culture in which the patterns he observed were formed.
* On Freud and Sexuality. Freud thought that letting sexuality "have free rein" would be the end of civilization as we know it. Reich: thought not. Our culture is sexually repressive, he held. He asked, what are the causes and consequences of living in this kind of culture?

NAZI GERMANY, FASCISM, AND THE COMMUNISTS. Reich's case study of fascism was largely responsible for his expulsion from both the psychoanalytic institute and the Communist party. The Communists said, "You're not supposed to be asking about psychology. Psychological effects are supposed to be determined by the economic situation, not vice-versa.

For Reich, a key question was: Why did people support the Nazis? Reich stated that he found that several things went together in Nazi Germany:

* Strong paternal authority
* Sexual repressiveness
* authoritarian personalities
* reactional political ideologies

Economically the Nazi program was not in the interest of lower middle class people of Germany, but they gave their support to it. Reich asked, What psychological reason could be found that would make the fascist ideology compelling to this group of people?

His answer was: The combination of authority and rebellion. Reich said the sons would especially admire an authoritarian person above them who was also rebellious. (Like Hitler and Stalin) That way they could fulfill the desire to rebel but with subservience. This was a submission that came with some real resentment.

FAMILY AND WORK. Reich noticed that the family structure and work structure in the German lower middle class overlapped. In their small farms and businesses, both the family authority and the work authority were the same person.In other cases, if you go off to work you're going to work somewhere else. But if you're in a situation where you're working together within the family, the father's capacity to ensure his authority, to have a kind of totalitarian state within the home, goes way up.

* Especially in such situations, fathers are better able to sexually repress their sons. So the sons develop a subservient attitude toward authority and a stronger identification with the father, which transfers to other authorities. They develop an authoritarian personality structure. A very strong identification with the authority who is above you and a subservience to it. Reich was apparently the first to look at this. Later Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson & Sanford studied this dynamic in much more detail in their social psychological classic, The Authoritarian Personality. Still later, Milton Rokeach continued this line of inquiry in Dogmatism.
*
* The authoritarian agenda is largely unconscious. People are almost totally unconscious of what they are doing, The parents carry out the intentions of authoritarian society. The authoritarian parent finds meaning through identification with a strong leader and nation. This explains why people get so caught up in their nation "being Number 1."
*
* Reich held that most of our inner experience has been cut off along with our sexuality, so that "being number 1" is where people of whom this is so find meaning in life.

THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX. Reich's explanation: You also get the Oedipus complex from this kind of situation. Sexual desires naturally urge a person to enter into all kinds of relations with the world, and to enter into close contact with others in a variety of forms. If these urges arep reressed, they can only express themselves in the narrow confines of the family. Karen Horney referred to "the emotional hothouse of the family."

'FAMILY VALUES" The "safeguarding of the family," held Reich, customariily refrers to the male-dominated authoritarian and large family. This, he declared, "is the first cultural precept of every reactionary ideology."

* Rather than support a variety of family forms, reactionary ideologies bolster the particular form that has an authoritarian male at the head. This sets people up to go for politically conservative ideologies.
* Jennifer Stone, a contemporary thinker, declares, "Always remember, 'family values' is a code-word for male supremacy."
* One cross-cultural study found that male dominance in the sultural structure was highly correlated with aggression.
* A feminist psychoanalyst, Nancy Chodow, maintains that no matter what you say about sex roles, if mother does all the childcare, it will perpetuate sex roles of traditional patriarchal society.

SOCIAL CONTROL IN PATRIARCHY AND MATRIARCHY

* Reich was saying that a certain family structure inadvertently contributes to a certain character structure. In patriarchy, there is much more emphasis on sexual control than in matriarchy. If all the wealth passes through the father, you want to be very sure who the father is. If it passes through the mother, there is less concern as to who the father is. Monogamy, etc., are not so necessary.
* Pre-patriarchal societies. Reich was aware of some of the early research, starting to come out in the 20th century, of pre-patriarchal society. Investigators tended to think of these as matriarchies. Now the evidence seems to be that in many of them neither gender ruled. There is evidence in Crete, Turkey, and southeastern Europe of a period of many thousands of years when there were both male and female rulers, both genders engaged in athletic contests, and "great mother" icons were widespread.

REICH'S SEXUAL EMPHASIS:. Reich's programs for social change always seemed to start with sex. Sexual hygiene programs for workers, young people having sex when they want to, etc. But such measures didn't start the revolution he wanted. In our society, we seem to be as likely to get child pornography as true sexual freedom.

Reich would always stop short of being completely systematic with something. Reich did not explain why the patterns he described would result from sexual repression instead of some other kind. The political and sexual arenas were two parallel streams of his thought and he liked to connect them because sexuality was one of his central interests, but actually the political effects could come from any kind of repression

ORGONE ENERGY

An adaptation of libido theory. Reich argued that libido theory was too narrowly sexual, and coined the term "orgone energy" for a broader view. Ultimately he argued that it is not only in the body but outside as well, defining it as "A subtle biophysical energy which permeates all living things." It Permeates all space in different concentrations, taken into the body through breathing.

He developed an "orgone box" or "orgone accumulator" to capture this vital energy so that people could then absorb it. Because of his orgone box, people thought he was in left field, and had gone mad.

But there are parallels among Hindu prana and the chakras.Fritz Perls, one of Reich's students and the central figure in founding Gestalt Therapy, avoided all this trouble by speaking simply of "excitement," noting thatour excitement can flow into emotion, inhibition of emotion, thinking, sensation, or action at any given moment. He paid attention to how excitement is expressed and blocked.

The orgone box was a 5 foot by 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 box made of layers of sheet metal and wood. Got into the weather, pulling energy from the universe, etc. These were purchased by doctors and psychiatrists in both the U.S. and abroad.He and his disciples bought land in Maine and called it Orgonon.

The verdict on orgone energy can be seen most clearly in the fact that all of Reich's students who carried on his body-oriented therapeutic work dropped the concept of orgone energy and did not make it part of their work.

DEATH IN PRISON He had been an activist in the German Communist party during the 1930s. In 1954, during thered-baiting Joe McCarthy era, when right-wingers found it politically expedient to find a communist under every bed. The feds in the U.S. went after Reich andFDA placed a ban on transporting, etc., the orgone boxe across state lines. In addition, it insisted that all copies of his books be distroyed..A co-worker continued to transport them, Reich was imprisoned. He died of a heart attack in prison at the age of 60 in 1957 after two years in Federal prison, the day before he was to go up for parole. His son, who was 13 when father was imprisoned, said, "Cry," we can cry together," when he visited in prison, and they did. After Reich's death, most students stopped continuing his work, but his daughter Eva carried on, and Ellsworth Baker, and Alexander Lowen.



PSYCHOLOGY'S STRANGE BLACKOUT OF REICH'S WORK. It is incontestable that Reich is one of the seminal thinkers and practitioners of twentieth century psychology. He singlehandedly brought the body into psychology at a time when others dealt with the mind and emotions but the only reference to the body was physiological and neurophysiological.

When I revised this lecture in 2003, I looked through ten different history of psychology books and found no reference whatever to Reich. I looked through a number of personality theory books and found only one, Personality and Personal Growth, by James Fadiman and Robert Frager, that addressed and presented his work. Yet there are dozens of minor figures who made only small additions to ideas articulated by others who receive considerable mention. I find this utterly bizarre. You are welcome to your own speculations as to why American psychology largely ignores a man who was one of the last century's greatest contributors to its advancement. (There is an interesting parallel with the longtime ignoring of contributions by women psychologists.) As he was persecuted in life for drawing attention to matters that others wished to look away from, so is he largely ignored in death.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Baker, Elsworth F. Man in the Trap. New York: Avon, 1974.
Bean, Orson. Me and Orgone. New York: Fawcett, 1971.
Boadella, David. Wilhelm Reich. Chicago: Regnery, 1974.
Dunbar, F. Mind and Body: Psychosomatic Medicine. New York: Random House, 1955.
Lowen, Alexander. The Betrayal of the Body. London: Collier, 1967.
Lowen. Bioenergetics. New York: Penguin, 1976.
Lowen. Love and Orgasm. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
Mann, W. Edward, and Hoffman, E. The Man who Dreamed of Tomorrow. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1980.
Man, W.E. Orgone, Reich, and Eros. N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1973.
Reich, Ilse Ollendorff. Wilhelm Reich. London: Elek, 1969.
Reich, Wilhelm: The Cancer Biopathy. NY: Orgone Institute Press, 1948.
----- Character Analysis. NY: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1949.
-----The function of the Orgasm. New York: Farrar, St. , 1973.
-----Listen, Little Man! New York: Farrar, 1967.
-----The Mass Psychology of Fascism. NY: Farrar, 1971.
-----The sexual Revolution, Farar, 1962.
Sharaf, Myron. Fury on Earth. NY. St. Martin's, 1983.
Autobiography: Passions of Youth.


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dgb...continued...Aug. 16th, 2009.


I like Wilhelm Reich. Reich 'thought outside the Orthodox Psychoanalytic Box' although, it would definitely seem that towards the end of his career and life, Reich went 'a little or a lot off the deep end' of what most people, including myself, would likely be willing to believe and/or follow. Still, Reich was a very creative, original thinker chasing down and seeking to compensate for his own private demons as well as his patients'. He had a strong influence on Fritz Perls and the development of Gestalt Therapy. I cannot say for sure but I would say that it is definitely very likely that Reich significantly influenced Perls' 1936 paper cited above on 'Oral Resistances' which was definitely 'too far outside the box of Orthodox Freudian Psychoanalysis' to be acceptable to Freud -- probably prompting Freud's quick negative reaction against Perls described above.

I don't know why Freud would have objected to Perls' idea of 'oral resistances'. Without even reading Perls' 1936 paper on this subject matter -- I'm not even sure where I can find this paper; so far, I have only found a reference to it on the internet -- I can surmise how this theory might easily be used.

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From the internet...a paragraph taken from...

Prelude To Contemporary Gestalt Therapy

By

Charlie Bowman, MA, and Philip Brownell, Psy.D.

(Previously published at the first web site for the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT), under the title, "Simplified Summary of Gestalt Therapy - Historical Antecedents.")



The Perls' had fled Nazi Germany, where Fritz lost most of his family members. His presentation to the 1936 Psychoanalytic Conference on "Oral Resistances" was shunned, as was Ego, Hunger and Aggression when it was published in 1942 (following a scathing review by Marie Bonepart). By 1944, he had been a soldier for both the English and the German armies, and they had moved from affluence to poverty and back. Clearly, these life experiences influenced Gestalt therapy theory, providing concepts such as “zero-point,” “homeostasis,” and “polarity,” among others.


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'Ego, Hunger, and Aggression' (1942, 1947, 1969), I have read which in itself via the influence of other theorists such as Friedlander, Cannon, Jung, and indirectly, Hegel, continues to provide an important influential foundation for my work here in 'Hegel's Hotel'.

Regarding the idea of 'oral resistances', if I am hungry and want to eat -- even 'need' to eat -- but I put up a 'mental block', a 'resistance' or 'defense' against eating, say, to 'prevent my stomach from getting any bigger', then this could easily be conceived of as an 'oral resistance'. Taken to the extreme, the result of this type of 'oral resistance behavior could or can easily become 'anorexia', a very serious eating disorder, or alternatively, any form of healthy or unhealthy 'dieting'.

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Apr 06 2008
Bulimia and Anorexia
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Just caught this long article on Eating disorders on the main MSN.ca site. There are a lot of facts in this article and it is interesting that when people want to better their health sometimes they go to far and actually harm themselves by losing to much weight. I used to hate the talk of Anorexia and Bulimia being a disease thinking that it was just a way for some people to get attention but have really learned over the last few years that this is something that is a very dangerous disease with very deep rooted causes.

Eating disorders have increased in frequency as a consequence of society’s emphasis and preoccupation with thinness. Eating disorders are multi-factorial, with genetic, traumatic and nutritional causes. In North America, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the two most important eating disorders. They predominantly affect females.
What is the difference between anorexia and bulimia?

Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric condition where people intentionally starve themselves because of a false belief that they are fat, or for fear of becoming obese. In reality, they are almost always underweight or of normal weight when the condition starts. It is estimated that more than 90% of all those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa are female, often from middle and upper socioeconomic backgrounds. This disorder usually starts in the years between adolescence and young adulthood, with the average age at onset of 14 years. Anorexia nervosa afflicts about 1 per 100,000 in the population at large, but the rate is believed to be higher among Caucasian adolescent girls – about 1 in 200.

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder that is characterized by uncontrolled or compulsive binge eating, usually followed by inappropriate ways of trying to get rid of the food. Most often, this involves purging by self-induced vomiting or abuse of laxatives, enemas, or diuretics. It’s also sometimes called the binge-purge syndrome. Some people with bulimia don’t purge, but will overeat (consuming as many as 20,000 calories at one time) and then compensate for binge-eating sessions with other behaviours such as fasting or over-exercising. A person with bulimia may secretly binge anywhere from twice a day to several times daily. In most cases, binge eating is followed by purging. A bulimic may use as many as 20 or more laxatives at a time.

Bulimia commonly appears in the latter part of adolescence, between the ages of 18 and 20, but it can develop at an earlier or later age. Like anorexia, bulimia predominantly affects young, Caucasian, middle- and upper-class women. The American Psychiatric Association estimates that between 0.5% and 3.7% of females experience anorexia and between 1.1% and 4.2% experience bulimia at some point in their lifetime. One difference between people with bulimia and anorexia nervosa is that people with bulminia are aware of their problems with food yet they don’t feel in control of their condition.
Causes of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are generally viewed as being psychological in origin. However, like depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar affective disorder, they are presently believed to have many causes – including genetic and functional changes in the brain. People suffering from anorexia and bulimia have preoccupations with body image, weight, and eating. They also have a distorted personal body image and a fear of fatness and weight gain.

Although cultural factors have an influence on the development of eating disorders, they appear to stem from multiple factors. There’s been a lot of debate about the role of faulty parenting and dysfunctional family environments in relation to eating disorders. Genetic and hormonal factors are believed to play significant roles; people with eating disorders are believed to have a genetic predisposition to the illness. Individuals who have a family history of depression, alcohol abuse, obesity, or eating disorders are at higher risk for anorexia nervosa and bulimia. There also appears to be a neurologic relationship between eating behaviour patterns (such as dieting and starvation) and the nervous and hormonal systems, since hunger, food cravings, and feelings of fullness are controlled by certain areas of the brain and involve a number of digestive hormones.
Symptoms and Complications of eating disorders

People with anorexia nervosa may appear severely emaciated due to malnutrition, sometimes so severe that their ribs can be seen through the skin. Other common symptoms of anorexia include:

* missed, or absence of, menstrual periods
* constipation
* intolerance to cold
* dizziness
* irritability
* depression
* inability to concentrate
* dehydration
* faintness or weakness
* slow heart beat
* low blood pressure
* loss of body fat
* dry, scaly skin
* psychological fears of obesity and weight gain

While most people feel hungry and uncomfortable when their calorie intake is low or restricted, people with anorexia suppress this discomfort and usually lose the ability to normally appreciate normal hunger cues. As they begin to starve, they may experience a feeling of euphoria, similar to how a runner or jogger gets the well-known “runner’s high.”

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In the famous first case of Psychoanalysis, 'Anna O', Anna at one point had a 'drinking phobia' (another form of 'oral resistance') which was traced by Breuer to a memory where she remembered 'a dog drinking water from a glass'. Now, to be sure, there were many, many other factors at work in Anna O's extreme brand of 'neurosis' and/or 'hysterical psychosis' -- indeed, even today there is much disagreement as to whether Breuer and Freud 'misdiagnosed' Anna O's illness.

Many today think that Anna O. suffered from some form of 'neurological disorder' such as 'epilepsy' which, to the best of my knowledge, not being a doctor, and as someone who was not there, like any and/or all others who try to 'historically diagnose' some 100-129 years after the fact -- does not 'fit for me'.

I think that Breuer and Freud mainly had their diagnosis right (i.e., 'hysterical psychosis' which may be just another way of saying a 'functional and/or dysfunctional series of partial or complete nervous breakdowns').

There may have been some things that Breuer and Freud may have missed which I will address in my next paper. But again, I think Breuer and Freud largely got it right. In some ways, I trust Breuer more than Freud because Breuer was the more 'rationally-empirically grounded scientist and scientific theorist' and less 'narcissistically biased of the two of them' but still, it was Freud, not Breuer, who came up with the concept of 'The Theory of Defense' which to this day remains one of the central foundations of all Psychoanalysis -- Classical and otherwise -- and indeed, of all psychotherapy in general.

I like how Breuer handled himself in Psychoanalytic history -- a man to be respected for maintaining his scientific and family values (at least that we know of) -- but Freud was by far the greater visionary of the two of them -- stoned and/or not stoned on cocaine between some or all of 1884 and 2004 -- 24 volumes later, Freud had laid the groundwork for virtually all Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy to come; he still, in my mind, remains the undisputed 'heavyweight' in his field, and a creative genius, leading the way where few to no other men would travel (even if he backed off once he got there as in The Seduction Theory)

Regardless of how many theoretical mistakes he made, and/or how many ethical transgressions that he committed -- and at least two of them were bad ethical medical transgressions -- still, Freud was a bold, risk-taking, creative theorist, and without him, there likely would have been no Adler, no Jung, no Ferenczi, no Reik, no Rank, no Fairbairn, no Fromm, no Erickson, no Sullivan, no Horney, no Perls, no Masson, and no Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology, along with thousands and thousands of other theorists and/or therapists who I have not mentioned, thousands and thousands who I do not even know who they are -- in any other closely conceivable way to the way that they turned out having been influenced by Freud.

We still have a ways to go here, other theoretical and therapeutic places to travel, but I think that we have more than covered quite a bit of different, connected, unconnected, and soon to be connected, territory here.

It has taken me almost a week to cover all this subject matter -- book-ended around my 10th anniversary with my girlfriend last Thursday and Friday, Aug. 13th. and 14th.

We will look at the Anna O. case more closely in the next essay.

Enough for now.


-- dgb, Aug. 16th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- DGB Multi-Dialectic Psychology, Psycho-theory, and Psychotherapy Goes Beyond Conceptual and Territorial Naricissism.